PIIE CDO Chapter: Birth of the First Chapter
The idea of organizing the ever-first local chapter of the PIIE family started when two IEs from Cagayan de Oro City attended the 3rd PIIE Congress held last March 22, 2002 at EDSA Shangrila Hotel. For the delegates, the Congress was indeed an eye-opener and gave a sense of belongingness, bringing them closer to their beloved profession - Industrial Engineering.
On April 12, 2002, twelve (12) professional and practicing IEs representing the academe, service and manufacturing industries, met at the Nestle Training Center. The group unanimously agreed to give birth to PIIE-Mindanao Chapter primarily aimed to:
· Define the IEs role in the National and Local development;
· Foster camaraderie, networking and linkage among industrial engineers in the region and cooperation with other engineering/scientific societies and agencies;
· Provide a venue for continuing education ;
· Promote and maintain high professional standards among its members;
· Assist education and research in the field of Industrial Engineering;
· Establish a collective strategy in influencing government and private industries' goals towards Operational Excellence.
As drivers of change, the Industrial Engineer must be abreast with the ever-changing economy, market preferences and manufacturing strategies. Some of the concepts and fundamentals that we learned from college may have been upgraded, modified and worst of all, made obsolete. Some IE concepts may have been introduced recently. Without a venue for continuing education, how would we know? Hence, we thought of this General Assembly.
The PIIE-Mindanao chapter had a taste of birth-pains when we formally launched the General Assembly campaign. We faced several obstacles, ranging from lack of funds, activities, identifying the ever-silent IEs (we even send personalized invitations to persons whom we think are IEs but are not), time-constraints and the likes. Then, there was the legal aspect. Recognizing the fact that other cities in Mindanao may formally organize their local chapters and considering the geographical difficulty of coordinating the activities, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National PIIE advised us to change its name to PIIE-Cagayan de Oro (CdO) City Chapter, Inc. In the meantime that there are no other local chapters in the region, CdO chapter will continue to serve its members throughout Mindanao by bringing IE updates and, at the same time, by supporting the National PIIE in carrying out its activities.
2002-2003 ACTIVITIES
